Ghost
by Padshii Angel
Summary: When she and her sons were captured by the First Order, Hirani Dameron was reunited with her estranged husband Poe. Now she's on a mission to recover them, meanwhile Poe is on the run with the resistance, the First Order hot on their heels. The galaxy lost hope, but in some corners there are whispers of a forgotten hope that burned bright in the days of the empire Part 2 of Dameron
1. Chapter 1

**Alrighty guys, I am back much sooner than I had planned, but I needed to get this story started while my muse is still hot with ideas as my wonderful son in an all too common fit of helpfulness accidentally threw away all my notes for this story. I said soooo many bad words when I discovered that, anyway, I'll leave you to the first chapter.**

 **Oh! also, usual disclaimers.**

Hirani knelt among the dense orange, grey and green scrub, watching the approaching convoy.  
They had appeared from the gates of the small facility on the tiny backwater planet. The tiny woman watched them pass and slipped as quietly as she could back to her camp where her two grizzled companions waited.

"What did you see?" The man asked quietly, all of them were very conscious of the need for silence.

"A heavily armed convoy left the facility to head somewhere else on planet." She responded, her voice equally as soft. "I think if we follow them we might find something we can use against the Order." She added. "They were headed north."

"No child." The other woman among the trio murmured.

"Yes Lana." Hirani bowed her head in acquiescence.

"We understand that you want to do anything you can to help the resistance." Lana walked over and tucked a strand of dark green hair behind Hirani's ear. "Believe me; we want to help as well." Hirani nodded."But getting yourself killed isn't going to do anyone any good. We stick to the mission, get in, get as much info as we can, and get out."

Hirani nodded and went to the tiny ration box on the side of the camp, pulling out a nutrition stick.  
With a shudder she nibbled on the tasteless stick experimentally.  
She swallowed it and held her breath, waiting to see if her body would accept it.

"Are you still struggling to keep food down?" The man asked just before she ran into the bushes to violently hurl.

She heard the faint rustle of the underbrush as she continued heaving uncontrollably.  
"I'll take that as a yes." he said, kneeling beside her and handing her a canteen of water. "Drink lass. My son would kill me if I didn't look after you."

Hirani sat back and accepted the small metal canister, sipping gratefully. "Get some rest girl. You're no good to anyone while you're sick."  
Hirani shook her head as she tried again to eat the nutrition stick, this time more successfully.

"I'll be fine Kes." She waved him off before she left the camp to return to her post near the forbidding complex of military buildings.  
She knew the other two were worried about her, but she didn't have time to worry about herself.  
She had to find her sons.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Poe sat in his fighter, watching the bar on the readout in front of him as BB8 powered up the rear thrusters of the engine.  
The dreadnought in front of him was an imposing one.  
BB8 beeped nervously as he changed his position to one of defence.

"Happy beeps here buddy, come on." Poe chastised the droid lightly. "We've pulled crazier stunts than this."

"For the record Commander, I'm with the droid on this one." Leia Organa's voice came over the comm. link.

"Happy beeps." He breathed and then flipped a switch, opening a line of communication to the lead ship.  
"Attention this is Commander Poe Dameron of the Republic Fleet." He announced. "I have an urgent communiqué for General Hug." He smirked a moment later when he saw the First Order accept the line.

"This is General Hux of the First Order." The arrogant reply came back. "The Republic is no more; your fleet are rebel scum and war criminals." Hux continued into the line and Poe couldn't resist rolling his eyes.  
"Tell your precious princess that there will be no terms, there will be no surrender."

"Hi, I'm holding for General Hugs." Poe said dryly, turning down the volume on the open line he had with the rest of the resistance fleet so that the First Order had no chance of hearing the laughter coming from them.

"This is Hux." The response was clipped, clearly getting quite annoyed. "You and your friends are doomed; we will wipe your filth from the galaxy!"

"Okay, I'll hold." Poe answered.

"Hello?" Hux asked.

"Hello? Yup, still here." Poe replied.

"Can he hear me?" He heard Hux ask one of the technicians on the bridge. "He can?"

"Hugs?" Poe asked again. "Skinny guy, kind of pasty."

"I can hear you!" Hux ground out. "Can you hear me?"  
Poe looked at the information on the readout and smiled.

"Look, I can't hold forever." Poe said as he adjusted his gloves. "If you reach him can you please tell him that Leia has an urgent message for him?"

"I believe he's tooling with you sir." He heard the muttered words from someone else on the bridge.

"It's about his mother." Poe added for effect and then he closed off the line. "Alright BB8 punch it!" He ordered the droid and was thrown back in his seat as the engine fired, sending the x-wing forward faster than he was prepared for.

The dreadnought began to fire at him. He slipped under their shield and began to systematically take out their surface cannons.  
"Alright, taking out their cannons now, Tallie start your approach." Poe ordered.

"Copy Black Leader." Came the reply and Poe continued firing on the cannons.

"One cannon left." He told the others, looking at movement out of the corner of his eye. "And here comes the parade."  
BB8 trilled at him anxiously. "Yeah, yeah I see him." Poe snapped, weaving between mag pulses.  
He was jolted forward when a lucky blast struck them and a small high pitched alarm started in the cockpit.  
"No, no! Dammit!" He swore when he tried to fire. "BB8 my weapons systems are down! We gotta take out that last cannon or our bombers are toast. Work your magic buddy!"  
He didn't listen for a response, just focused on flying carefully to avoid the TIE's that were dancing their lethal ballet around him as they tried to take out the bombers that were inexorably advancing on the dreadnought, the resistance fighters dancing among them to protect them from the First Order thugs.

Meanwhile in the engine bay of his fighter BB8 was frantically bypassing the damaged circuits to create a rough patch for the weapons systems.  
Four large plasma bursts flew towards the base and then he heard Leia over the comm.

"You did it, Poe." The old woman said warmly. "Now get your squad back here so we can get out of this place."

"No, General, we can do this! We have the chance to take out a dreadnought!" Poe protested, determined to see his mission through. "These things are fleet killers!" He continued as he shot through a small gap with a TIE hot on his heels."We can't let it get away."

"Disengage now Commander. That is an or…" Poe didn't let Leia finish what she was saying; he shut off his comm. and continued.

"Let's go BB8 it's now or never!" He yelled and a split second later his weapons came back online with an electrified squeal from his astromech.  
He took out the last cannon with a whoop of victory, bracing himself on the side of the cockpit as he spun around coming up behind the two TIE's trailing him and fired two bursts, killing both enemy fighters.  
He opened the comm. again. "All clear! Bring the bombs!" He declared, looking for the bombers, and his heart went cold when he saw no bombers coming, only black squadron providing cover for him.  
"No." He muttered when he realised that Leia had recalled the bombing fleet.  
He grit his teeth then and flew in close to the target.

"Poe we need to disengage now." Snap said into the comm. but the commander ignored him.  
Poe redirected the power from his shields into his plasma cannon, syphoning power from his engines to add more power to weapon and he circled the weak point, searching for the best place to fire.

He was aware of black squadron mirroring his movements and he saw what he was looking for, with a grunt he fired and darted out, preparing for another run, and then he saw black squadron do the same, each firing on the same spot he had and darting out again.

On the second bombing run he saw it, a single bomber gliding almost sluggishly towards them.

"Fighters cover that bomber!" Poe ordered, hurrying to protect the bomber from the fighters that were advancing on the deadly ship.  
They disengaged from the barely scratched dreadnought and immediately set about taking out the TIE's.

Poe watched with his heart in his throat as the bay doors opened laboriously and then there was a violent explosion as the bomber was hit. Nobody spoke as they watched fearfully hopeful that they had succeeded anyway, and then, ever so slowly the bombs dropped from the artificial gravity of the ship, the momentum forcing them closer to the gigantic ship and homing in on the target.  
The fighters veered away, but the bomber was not so fortunate, going up with the blast as the others retreated to the resistance fleet.

 **I don't normally deviate from canon as much as I have with this first chapter but I'm going to be breaking so many bloody habits with this story because Rian Johnson is most definitely not a tactician, nor is he a particularly good story teller, sorry to his fans, it's just my opinion and I will not be backing down from this one.**

 **I would appreciate your thoughts on this, so review if you like si'l vous plait.**


	2. Chapter 2

"The perimeter is patrolled by an eight man team. They have checkpoints at every corner, at the gate and halfway along the fence surrounding the base." Kes said to the others after his final shift of reconnaissance.

"The fence will need to be disabled if we don't want to be fried going through." Lana pointed out practically.  
"Can you do it lass?" She turned to Hirani who shook her head.

"Not if I can't get access to the main power breaker," she said quietly. "I have an idea of how I can get in but we'd need to replace our ship."

"What exactly do you have in mind, lass?" Lana asked suspiciously.

"I crash the ship into the planet from orbit, ejecting in the escape pod preferably before it's too late." Hirani replied sheepishly. "It's not a great plan but it's better than nothing."

"Put that half cocked idea aside until we have no other option girl." Kes said absently as he studied the layout of the jungle surrounding the base. "There's another way in, we just don't know it yet."

"How?" Hirani asked the old man.

"What about an EMP?" Lana suggested. "It is old tech, but it might work." The others looked at the old soldier in surprise.

"What is an EMP?" Hirani asked with a frown.

"It stands for electromagnetic pulse." Kes replied. "I wouldn't worry about it. It's just a myth from the old tales on Coruscant, like the oceans and forests of that planet."

"Before she died, my mother told me that sunlight is a myth to many on Coruscant, yet it is as real there as the trees around us now." Hirani pointed out. "How would we go about causing an elect- an EMP?"

"It's supposed to be like a grenade." Lana replied. "It fries all technology near it for a short time. If we can build one and get it past the fence we should be able to shut down its power source."  
Hirani listened to the explanation and nodded thoughtfully.

"I would need access to whatever information we have available to us to figure out how to make it." She mused, looking down at the largely empty map in front of them. "But I should be able to." She added.  
"It wouldn't be anything like a solar storm would it?" She looked up at Lana shrewdly, but the woman raised her hands and shook her head with an expression of confusion.

"We'd need to go to Coruscant." Kes grumbled. "That's time I don't think we have."

"What if I were to imitate the effect that a solar storm has on electronics?" Hirani asked thoughtfully. "We would need to find a way to direct it without destroying the data on the computers but it could work."

"It has merit." Lana said thoughtfully, giving Kes a meaningful look.

"How do you propose we get the parts we would need? We have access to the data we need to make it in the ship's terminal; the parts are a different story." Kes said thoughtfully.

~/~/~/~/~/~

Rey stood before the living legend, Luke Skywalker.  
He was older than she had imagined him, his unkempt beard flecked with a lighter brown than his sister's own hair and his features were worn down by the years he had lived.  
He seemed kind of portly under his robes but his piercing blue eyes were lit by something Rey could not put a name to.  
She rushed up to him and pulled his lightsaber out of her pack, offering it to him with shaking hands as he observed the young woman.

Luke reached out to accept the weapon with two hands that couldn't be more mismatched, one a human hand, as wrinkled as his face; one mechanical, only marred by an old scar from a blaster and he looked down at the lightsaber thoughtfully for a moment before he haphazardly tossed it over his shoulder and proceeded to stalk past the hopeful young woman before him without uttering a single word to her.

"Master Skywalker?" Rey asked incredulously, turning on her heal and hurrying after him.  
She followed him to a small village perched precariously on the cliffs of the island, seeming as though it should fly off in the incessant wind that battered the monolithic islands of the archipelago, but this she already knew to be a deceptive impression of the cluster of cone-like buildings doggedly hugging the treacherous cliffs of the verdant island.

Rey climbed down some stone steps and looked around, turning towards the protesting screech of durasteel on stone in time to see a banged up panel covering the squat doorway of one abode that stood slightly apart from the others.  
She took the few steps to the weathered stone hut and leaned towards the door cautiously.  
"Master Skywalker?" She asked again, then licked her lips and breathed in. "I'm from the resistance, your sister Leia sent me." She continued determinedly. "We need your help."

When there was no response from inside the hut she took half a step forward and tapped lightly on the makeshift door with her staff.  
"Hello?" She called out, but her only response was a far off cry from some creature somewhere on the island.  
Rey turned away and went to retrieve the carelessly discarded lightsaber and stared down at the ocean as it beat itself against the cliffs with a reckless abandon that seemed almost aggressively playful.

Chewy had warned her that it was poisonous to drink because there was too much salt in the water and she chose to trust the Wookie who had seen far more of the galaxy than she could ever hope to.

A break in the waves showed her a submerged fighter, it looked a lot like the x-wings that the resistance used, but she wasn't sure as the constantly shifting water distorted her view of its body.  
With renewed determination Rey stood up and returned to the Falcon to enlist the aid of her hirsute travelling companion.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Poe's head snapped to the side as Leia slapped him, putting an almost surprising amount of force behind the strike.

"You're demoted." The old general announced angrily and started to walk away from him.

"What? Wait!" Poe stepped in front of her, staring down at her incredulously. "We took down a dreadnought."

"At what cost?" Leia asked him with a furious glare.

"You start an attack, you follow it through." Poe pointed out, frustrated that Leia didn't seem to understand that.

"Poe, get your head out of your cockpit." Leia snapped in response, her face screwing up in obvious frustration, the younger man turned away restlessly and took a breath before turning back to her. "There are things that you cannot solve by jumping in an x-wing and blowing something up!"  
Poe looked down at the console beside them, the sting of her words making him feel like an errant boy, instead of the man he was.  
"I need you to learn that." Leia finished more gently this time.

 **Hey guys, back again, just kind of chewing through this one slowly, so it's not going to be chapter a day like the last one.**

 **Let me know what you think.**


	3. Chapter 3

Hirani studied the readouts on the last ten solar storms they had passed on their way to the backwater planet they were staying on.  
The information was conclusive and she grimaced at what she was seeing.

She could recreate the effects of the storms, but directing it was going to be a problem.  
Kes walked into her workspace and snapped his fingers in front of her nose, breaking her concentration.

"We'll find another way girl." He announced decisively. "The more time we waste here is more chances for them to find us."

"We need a way to take out that fence." She protested vehemently, turning back to her task but the old man grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

"No, Hirani. There are other ways." Kes admonished gently.

"They have my sons Kes." She whined plaintively. "I have to get them back."

"The boys are my family too, don't forget that Hirani." Kes pointed out gently. "We'll get them back; in the meantime I have an idea that might get us some results that will help the resistance at the same time."

~/~/~/~/~/~

The cavernous chamber was shrouded in forbidding ebony, cruel stone bled from the ceiling, down, down, down in ominous sheets that dressed three of the four walls and spilled across the rough, volcanic floor.  
The only light in the room came from the grand, floor to ceiling window that admitted the menacing view of the planet, dark black stone endeavouring ceaselessly in an ultimately futile attempt to cage the raw, burning fury of Mustafar's glowing lithosphere.

The damning scenery was hardly conducive to peaceful rest, the boy standing at the window mused thoughtfully as he stared listlessly out at the volatile play taking place outside his current home.  
Behind him he could hear his brother, identical in almost every way, sleeping deeply in the threateningly sumptuous quarters they shared.

Garran Dameron sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face before staring out across the hellscape again.  
His mind however was a million light-years away, worrying over his mother; the men who had taken him away from his family had told him that he had been cast off, but they had not taken into account his close bond with his brother, and then after an accident he had been taken to this burning world where he was reunited with his brother, Kes.

Kes, he knew, was not willing to try to find their mother. He had faith in the man they were to call Master.  
Kylo Ren kept promising to bring their mother to them, but every time he made that promise, something did not sit right with Garran, something Kes wasn't willing to believe.

Heaving another great sigh Garran turned and scowled at his oblivious brother; they needed to get off Mustafar and find her.  
Garran new they could fly a TIE fighter; they just had to get to it.  
Unfortunately the guards that kept them only left them unsupervised in their private chambers, but they were never unguarded, there was always someone at the door.

The small boy sat down and closed his eyes, hoping to meditate the way Kylo had taught him to before leaving Mustafar to answer the summons of the Supreme Leader.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Poe watched the languid seeming crawl of the vast black vacuum, a permanent night, stewing privately over Leia's harsh lecture.  
As much as he wanted to, he couldn't deny that she was correct in her assessment. His tactics so far had only succeeded through luck; but they had lost countless lives to his half cocked schemes.

Around him there was a hive of activity on the bridge but he was largely left alone, he felt stung but he ultimately knew he would rebound; this rebuke was just part of a seemingly endless learning curve.

The proximity alert sounded, breaking his reverie and he rounded, moving to the closest monitor, his smarting pride forgotten.

"It's the First Order" Someone called tensely. "They've found us!"  
The crew pulled up a holo scan of the space behind them and Poe went cold, horror stealing up his spine to lodge in his throat, a solid rock threatening to choke him.

"That's Snoke's ship." He managed past the contagious fear that swept everyone on that bridge into the unrelenting grip of its insidious infection, threatening to swamp them all in a desperate fugue of hopelessness. "You gotta be kidding me." The pilot growled, hot determination lancing the infection.

He hurried over to another console, standing with the rest of the crew required to pilot the small behemoth they were protected in.  
"Can we jump to light speed?" He asked Connix as he hastened to join the chaotic order on the bridge.

"We have just enough fuel resources for one jump." The technician replied.

"Well then do it, we gotta get outta here." He replied, his fingers starting to fly over the controls.

"Wait." Leia ordered softly, her eyes betraying her horrifying realisation as she looked around at those who followed her so faithfully. "They've tracked us through light speed."

"That's impossible." Finn denied, looking at her incredulously. If anyone else had made that highly outlandish claim Poe would have agreed with the former storm trooper.  
But Leia wasn't the head of the resistance and acting Chancellor of the New Republic for nothing.

"Yes, and they've done it." She replied.

"So if we jump to lightspeed, they'll just find us again and we'll be out of fuel." Finn concluded. "They've got us."  
Poe looked at them all and then at the read outs from their tiny fleet and a wild hope blossomed in his chest.

"Not yet they don't" He rebuffed the dejected claim from his friend. "We still have a bombing fleet and plenty of fighters." He pointed out, hurrying around the console. "How quickly can we scramble to bombers and fighters?"

"We already have our bombing fleet out along with our escorts." Leia replied.

"Permission to jump in an X-Wing and blow something up?" Poe asked her hopefully.

"Permission granted Captain." Leia responded and Poe winced. "Admiral, swing us around and then head straight to your bridge and take command from there…" Poe didn't hear anymore as he sprinted from the main bridge, the other x-wing pilots that had been in the unofficial command centre following him closely as all hell broke loose in the space around them.

"Don't wait for me!" He called to BB8 as he ran. "Jump in and fire her up!" He watched his faithful droid shoot ahead, being knocked bodily from his feet as a series of rapid explosions rocked the ship.  
"Dammit, they've got TIE's out and under the shields." Poe scrambled to his feet as he muttered this; not sparing a glance at his comrades he continued his headlong dash to the hangar, rounding the corner into the hangar in time to be blown back away from the doors by a blast that took out the entire hangar and everyone in it, except BB8 who came careening through the air with mechanical screech of indignant surprise.

Poe saw stars as his head slammed hard against the floor and he skidded across the floor into the corridor, the wind being knocked out of him.  
Snap was at his side then, looking grim and Poe shared a moment of grief with the other man. Karé had been in that hangar when it exploded.

"Are you alright Poe?" Snap asked grimly, grabbing Poe's hand to help him up.

"We need to get out of range of those star destroyers." Poe said as the doors to the ruined hangar sealed. Beside him BB8 pulled himself together, literally and they hurried back to the bridge.

"We need to _what?_ " Ackbar was saying over the intercom when the pair arrived back on the bridge.

"Full engines ahead." Leia replied. "Get out of range of the Star Destroyers and the fighters will fall back."

"All craft full engines! Concentrate rear shields" Ackbar started calling commands over the open lines between the fleet. "Any fighters available provide cover for the bombers and try to take out as many First Order ships as possible."  
Leia turned to the youths with a fearful look in her eyes.

"Both of you report to the secondary hangar and get in the air. Finn go with them, offer any assistance you can. Poe I need you leading the assault." She ordered them and the two pilots nodded, running back out again followed by Finn.

Poe and Snap took in the outdated Alpha-3 Nimbus-class V-wings when they arrived and a look passed between them.

"It's a good thing we're the best pilots in the resistance." Poe said with a grimace. "This would be suicide otherwise."

"What do you mean would be?" Snap responded, equally grim. "This is suicide. Let's go." The pair hurried to get into the specialised flight suits required for surviving in these relics as their droids loaded into the astromech platforms.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Hirani sat back as the old rebels spoke around her. She picked at the simple food that had been put in front of her, yet more food that she couldn't keep down.  
She smirked ruefully as a small argument broke out among the old men and women around her.

Several of them had mechanical limbs, which arguably made them far better at anything they chose to do than even the young men and women who were littered around the room.

"Are you alright lass?" Lana asked as she sat down beside Hirani.

"I'm worried about Poe and my sons." The younger woman admitted. "What if we're too late to help the resistance? What will happen to my sons?"

"We'll save them, and we'll defeat these fascist bastards." Lana responded blithely. "We beat the Empire."

"That was then." A gruff old Twi'lek snapped in Ryl. "This is now; none of the actual warriors in this room have held a weapon in years."

"Speak for yourself Che'eziveri." Hirani responded in kind. "There are many in this room who can handle a weapon."

"Who are you to defile my people's sacred language?" The Twi'lek sneered at her.

"My grandfather was Ano'onbondara, chief of the Bondara clan. I was born Hiran'ibondara, now I am Hiran'idameron, wife of Poe Dameron."

"You are not even half-caste." Chee replied coldly in basic then, leaning over her. "You did not choose a proper Twi'lek husband Hirani Dameron and your ancestral clan is dead. You are nothing."  
Hirani shut her mouth, refusing to respond to the blatantly racist remarks the Twi'lek was making.

"That's uncalled for Chee." Another old rebel called him out then. "We have another war to fight." He added. "It's fine if you want to go home and pretend nothing is wrong with the galaxy, but I'm going to join Kes and Lana. Who's with me?"

In the end a little over half of the gathered rebels and their children raised their hands to join the revived rebel alliance, many choosing to give Chee Ziveri dirty looks.  
The rest left to return to their homes and the rebels put their heads together to plan.

 **So, this isn't my best work, I promise I will be tying as much as possible together as neatly as I can. Don't give up on me yet please, I freely admit that I am no tactician but I am doing my best.**

 **And hell yeah, I'm bring the rebel alliance back, along with the kids of the rebels that didn't immediately join the resistance.  
**

 **Vive la revolution!**


End file.
